The new project Silent Skies finds a way to take all the best parts of a good-and-not-scary warmth and create what is essentially a synth-based weighted blanket for the soul. The merger of Evergrey’s Tom S. Englund and acclaimed pianist and composer Vikram Shankar (Lux Terminus) feels like a genuine departure from and logical next step for the artists. Lush, cinematic, yet focused, Dormant is anything but, and it brings a smile to my face and soul with every new spin. There’s a sense of serendipity that permeates the record, and that’s not by accident.
“The immediate genesis of Silent Skies was Tom reaching out to me out of the blue on social media in 2017—a true serendipitous, Cinderella story sort of thing for me,” says Shankar. “The truth is, of course, that our paths were primed to cross, and what we had been doing for years separately led to us working so well together–me studying piano and cinematic music at a conservatory level, Tom exploring the depths of human experience with his band Evergrey. Ultimately Silent Skies is a merging of those two forces, but also represents a commitment to grow together and explore new ground and new ways to express ourselves.”
Dormant is available for pre-order from Napalm Records. Follow Silent Skies on Facebook and Instagram for future updates.
